A chipotle pepper is a dried, smoked jalapeno – so I’ve read. There’s a section in my local supermarket with bags of dried chile peppers of all kinds – pasilla, poblano, de arbol, tepin – but no chipotle. I’ve never been able to buy chipotles except in a can, in a thick sauce. Is it possible to buy them dried?
Penzey’s has them (http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/p-penzeyschipotle.html).
Another place that has them is Pendery’s – one of the better sources for chiles. They have them in dried form – ground, crushed, whole, and in several varieties – chipotle cafe (brown), chipotle meco (golden) and chipotle morita (red).
Yeah, I’ve seen them dried. Check out some smaller grocers, or if you’re lucky enough to live near a Mexican grocer, try there. For a long time, they were easier for me to find than the canned ones, although nowadays even the big generic grocery stores in the far north carry canned chipotle in adobo.
I’ve got some of the chipotle powder from Penzeys, and it is AMAZING. That shit… wow, is all I can say. I put it in everything nowadays. It is a fine, fine thing. I highly recommend it.
The Melissa’s brand of bagged produce items carried by many chain grocery stores has them. Right in there along with the sugercane and dried mushrooms.
All the supermarkets around my neighborhood seem to stock them. Then again, we do have a substantial Mexican population around here. I assume Tampa must have some Mexican neighborhoods, so you can always try there. If your question is more of whether such a product exists and is common, I would say yes. You won’t look like an idiot trying to find them.
Strangely enough, no. We have Cuban neighborhoods. (And they date from decades before Castro.) We do have Mexican people, I’m sure I can find a Mexicon grocery if I try. Thanks!
Herte in seattle there are quite a few spice shops that carry them if groceries don’t. You can buy whole, diced, flakes or powder.
Just found some dried chipotles at a Mexican grocery. Even there, though, I had to look pretty hard for them and get help from the staff. I wonder why there seems to be so little demand?
Oh, and in case you’re wondering why I was bothering – I’m always trying new chili recipes, some call for chipotles, and I don’t like the overwhelming BBQ flavor of the sauce canned chipotles come in.
Another suggestion: if you love chipotle, do yourself a favor and try morita peppers. Even more flavorful than chipotle, and soooo much smoky goodness. Fantastic.
Although, on further research, it appears that some folks consider moritas a subtype of chipotle, so eh.
They taste distinctly different to me, though.
“The Spice Hunter” (small bottled spices like Schilling and McCormick) has crushed chipotle chile pepper. Pretty decent stuff. I assume that any grocery store carrying “The Spice Hunter” brand of spices would have it.
Must be a regional thing. Like I said, there’s no shortage of dried chipotle peppers in Chicago.